iPhone data lost after update using friend's pc

My g/f has an iPhone 3G which she has used a lot for 18 months and had lots of saved texts and photos etc, but she is not very good at backups and has lost everything when upgrading from the original software, (about 2.6) to the current 4 something. Very unfortunately and unwisely, this was not even done on her own computer, but on a friends.

She has her own desktop pc and uses iTunes but hardly ever connects the phone and always declines to update when she does connect. She last connected about 6 months ago.
On New Years Eve we were at a friends house and a knowledgeable sounding guest offered to update her phone on her friends computer. They have their own iTunes account on it.

We connected the phone up and it started updating via the iTunes program and after one or two hours the software and firmware update completed. The sync options were then presented and as the knowledgeable person had by then gone home we thought Well, we dont want to sync with anything on this computer, we will disconnect and sync later on g/fs home computer. (We are still not quite sure what syncing is although g/f thinks she has synced before from home)

As you have guessed, the software upgraded fine but phone has been wiped of all data, pics, iTunes downloaded, texts, contacts, notes, calendars.

The obvious problem in this case is that we used someone elses pc. I have located the mobilesync backup folder on g/fs own pc and it is empty.

Is there any hope that we can retrieve anything from our friends pc which we updated on? Would a folder have been created separately on their pc for my g/fs phone?

I was not watching the pc the whole time it was updating and did not see everything that happened, but what I have established is that when I plugged her phone to her pc yesterday I got the warning message saying that the phone has been synced to another computer, (presumably the friends) and all data on the phone will be erased if I sync on this one (her one).

What I dont know is whether this warning message had come up on New Years Eve on the friends computer while updating, and whether it was ignored.

We have been back to our friends but they are getting a bit fed up with us, I think they will put up with us using their pc one more time so this time we will have to know what we are doing. I have an external HD so I could maybe copy the iTune files from their pc and work on them from home later?

When updating iTunes should of made a backup of the iPhone on your friends PC. Go onto the friends PC and restore to the backup that the friend's PC made, if the friend's PC didn't make a backup then you probably won't get the data back.

After I posted this I tried syncing g/f phone on home pc, in the top centre window it displayed syncing but at the end of the process there was still nothing in the backup folder, both by navigating to the folder in windows and via edit>preferences>devices. I am very intrigued as to what could have prevented the backup especially because when I right clicked on the phone in devices on the left hand column I was then able to select backup and a backup WAS created, viewable from both routes. (It is not viewable in iTunes>Edit>Preferences>Devices when the phone is disconnected).

I dont understand this as all info on the net states that a backup is created when you sync.

At least I know where the Backup should be.

Is something wrong?

Also, I have been warned that photos taken with the iPhone camera are also lost? Some of them were not backed up.
Is this what happens then, that during the software update all photos are erased without any warning or backup?

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Also, I have been warned that photos taken with the iPhone camera are also lost? Some of them were not backed up.
Is this what happens then, that during the software update all photos are erased without any warning or backup?

Click to expand...

Photos are not backed up in a backup when using software update.

It sounds to me like the person that updated it didn't click update but instead restored the phone, seeing that there is all this data missing.

Yes, the backup I did by right clicking on the device. Don't have phone with me now, will try later , I had checked "prevent iphones from syncing automatically" will that prevent the automatic backup on connection as well?

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